John Keats (1795-1821) is one of the greatest and most loved of all English poets. His life has helped to define the modern paradigm of the poet's story.
The first son of a stable keeper, Keats was orphaned as a boy of eight. He trained as a doctor but sacrificed his medical ambitions to a literary life. He contracted tuberculosis while nursing his brother through the fatal illness, and died in Rome at the age of twenty-five. He is a figure of tragic dimension.